


Paracetamol

by LogosMinusPity



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: F/F, Healing, I can dream about them having a somewhat functional relationship ok?, Prior trauma, Spoilers, Trust, and they can actually have a relationship, or we'll assume that for this, somehow the whole villain deal gets worked out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-07
Updated: 2020-04-07
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:54:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23521138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LogosMinusPity/pseuds/LogosMinusPity
Summary: There's knowing and then there'sknowing. Julia Ortega might think she does, might think that just because she's seen who you are--what you are--that sheknowsyou. But how could she? How could anyone truly know and still be with you?
Relationships: Ortega & Sidestep (Fallen Hero), Ortega/Sidestep (Fallen Hero)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 57





	Paracetamol

“Do you trust me?”

“Of course I don’t trust you, idiot.” You try to say it jokingly, with the same warmth as earlier, but it falls flat even to your own ears.

Immediately, the lines on Julia’s face deepen into even more concern.

Fuck.

You manage not to curse aloud, which would have only made things even more serious than what they already were.

You’re caught now, and you know well enough to know that the expression currently being directed at you from where she stands by her bedroom door means Julia Ortega is not about to let you joke and deflect your way out of this conversation. You could turn it into an argument, heated and angry and defensive in the only way you know how to protect yourself, but you’re tired of arguing. You’re tired of fighting to keep up these walls that Ortega always seems so intent on bypassing entirely.

You must have been thinking for a few moments too long, because the next you know, she’s taken a few long and certain steps to close the distance between you before you can even think to dart away. Damn her unbreachable thoughts. No chance for you to out maneuver her when you can’t even skim her thoughts and have to rely on body language alone.

Ortega is all about action. All about _doing_ while you’ve always spent _too much time thinking_. She acts now.

She wraps her arms around you, and when she kisses you that deeply--too deeply to ever be appropriate outside the privacy of her apartment, though you know that hardly matters to her--you can’t help but sigh and ease into it, even though your arms are stubbornly crossed in front of your chest.

When she finally breaks away from you, you could almost hate how much you want to pull her back in. Almost.

You settle instead for pillowing your face into the blend of real and modded skin that covers where her shoulder blends into her neck.

“Is it so bad, me wanting to be able to see all of you for once?”

Of course _that’s_ not what’s bad.

Well, not exactly.

“I thought lights off worked for us just fine.” You can’t even manage to put any light-heartedness into the comment. Total darkness has been the _only_ way you’ve ever been okay getting intimate with Julia, except she knows why now. She’s known why.

She’s seen you, after all. She knows now what you are, how you were made. And she knows the darkness provided cover to what any light on your naked skin would normally betray. 

Not human. Not real. Designed and programmed, not born. Re-Gene.

Still...even now her arms wrap around you in the same embrace as when you had to finally confess the truth, a silent promise that being a Re-Gene makes no difference to her.

(A small part of you will never fully believe that)

(Why should you believe that?)

(How could she have ever _really_ meant that it didn’t matter to her?)

You bite the inside of your cheek until it nearly bleeds, refusing to let your mind spiral down that same path that will only lead to Ortega worrying even more. And Ortega worrying even more means everything gets messy. You don’t need her trying to read _your_ mind, after all. You don’t need anyone doing that at all.

The train of thought automatically makes you shore up your shields--silly, because there’s no telepaths here, and because Julia’s mind is as much of an electrically charged wall of mystery to you as ever.

But it reins you back in, grounds you back in the present...where Ortega has a measuring look: part concern, but also unable to hide the eager desire behind her bright brown eyes.

The worst part about it is how genuine she is. You have no doubt that she’s only asking all of this because she really, _actually_ wants to. And you could shut it down, of course. Deflect, even just say no.

The sigh leaves you before you can catch it, and Ortega’s lips twitch upward, eyes practically shining now. You’ve known each other for too long for her not to recognize the sound of you giving in.

Dammit.

“Fine.” You manage that much without stuttering, tightening the fold of your arms across your chest, and turning your head aside.

Not that it’s possible to miss the way Ortega’s reserved smile immediately widens into a wide and beaming grin. It’s not the flirty smirk she showers without thinking upon servers and reporters, but the excited, heated grin that she seems to reserve for you and you alone.

It makes your stomach twist and flip as if Los Diablos is giving way to another big one, and a part of you still can’t stand the fact that _how dare Julia Ortega be able to do this to you_.

The thought floats away from you when she leans down for a kiss, a quick peck that just as quickly deepens, and you can’t help but turn into it. 

The warmth of Ortega holding you against her, the way her lips curve against yours in a permanent smile--why is she always so simplisticly idiotic about just being able to kiss you?

This part is familiar. This part you can fall into. But it’s the falling that scares you even now. Terribly, terribly uncontrolled. Like stepping out of a window and waiting for the ground to inevitably crash into you. Again.

And yet you can’t help it. You can’t help the way you yearn back despite it all--despite how a piece of you will always warn that emotions cannot be trusted, that they will only hurt you both in the end.

You’re falling, and you’re not sure if it’s terrible or freeing that you’ve already given in.

Like you always do.

Like you can’t help it.

Thank god Ortega is none the wiser, or she’d be truly insufferable.

You don’t know when your arms unfolded from across your chest, when you wrapped them back around Ortega. You don’t know when she started leading you both toward the bed until you feel the edge of the mattress press against the backs of your legs, and you have to sit or risk falling backward.

You sit, and Ortega leans down first to follow your mouth; kneels second between your feet so that suddenly you’re the one bearing down over her. She still hasn’t made any moves to take off your clothes, or to even slide her hands up and under your shirt, and that abruptly unsettles you more than anything else.

You raise an eyebrow when she pulls back from making out and doesn’t allow your lips to chase her. Her hands rest easily on your legs.

“Give me a moment.”

Without waiting for a response, she gets up and leaves you, padding over to her dresser with her back turned.

You raise the other eyebrow as she fiddles for something in the drawer, and then finally turns and comes back to you.

“I know it’s easier for you if you can’t see, sooo…”

She trails off and doesn’t manage to look even remotely sheepish when she holds up a bit of black fabric in one hand.

It’s a silk blindfold, the kind whose only function is in the bedroom, and your cheeks light up.

“Why do you even have something like that?” You do your best to grumble in what you hope comes off as judgemental, but the response is only an even toothier grin.

“Do you really want to hear the answer to that?” 

It’s practically a dare, and Ortega looks downright devilish now, making a shiver explode straight from the stem of your central nervous system across your entire body, prickles of cold followed by a wash of blistering and familiar heat.

You tell yourself you’re not giving her what she wants when you refuse to answer her question, and your eyes fall back to the silk, considering.

She _does_ have a point.

Enough of point to make you realize just how much thought she’s put behind this. Enough planning and consideration over you that it frightens you just a little bit.

(It will, probably, always scare you to think of how damn much Ortega always puts in, and nothing ever deters her. Damn her. And damn the weakness of your own emotions).

You don’t want to back down; it’s a realization more than a decision.

How easy it would still be to say no, to shut the door entirely. But you’re already reaching out, committing yourself before your rational mind can step ahead and try to shut it all down.

The flimsy bit of silk is soft against your fingers. You take a deep breath, feeling Ortega’s eyes on you, and press the dark fabric up to cover your eyes, tying the ends at the back of your head. Not too tight, not too loose.

“Well?” You aim your face in the direction you know Ortega is, posturing with the best smirk you can manage, hoping it does look as brittle as you fear it might.

There’s no immediate answer. You can hear--you can _feel_ \--Ortega close the distance that remains between you, and her hands slowly and carefully guide you to lay down.

As if you’re glass.

As if she doesn’t want to break you.

(You’re the one who doesn’t want to break her.)

With the blindfold on you can pretend it’s the same as being in darkness. It’s the same as how you have normally been Ortega, pitch black so she can’t see you, and so you can’t see yourself. You tell yourself over and over that it’s no different, but the lie doesn’t stick.

Unable to read Ortega’s mind and fabric over your eyes, you feel blinded in more ways than one, no matter your earlier bravado. Heart thundering in your chest, you’re too aware. Too aware of the mattress pressing into your back, of the high thread count linens (too much money to spend on sheets of all things) wicking the sweat from your clammy palms. Too aware of the shape and presence of Julia at your side, hovering over you, running one hand tenderly through your hair.

You’re still fully clothed, and for that a part of you is relieved. The same part of you is also so tense when Julia’s hand first touches the side of your face, you nearly jump.

“Easy,” she coaxes, and you can feel her lips, her warm breath, next to your ear as she leans in. One warm palm cups your cheek. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

You swallow at that, knowing how much Ortega wants this. You know, despite how much you try to deny it, that this is something some tiny, long-since beaten and broken part of you wants, too.

When the silence is filled only with the sound of your own breathing, you realize she’s waiting on you. You swallow once, then have to lick your dry lips to answer.

“I’m fine, Ortega.” You push some teasing into your voice. “Unless you realized it’s past your bedtime, old woman.”

Ortega snorts and curses even as the mattress groans and you feel her roll over so that she’s hanging over you. “Mierda...you’re the one in bed with this ‘old woman’, smart ass.”

You have a reply for that, too, but before you can voice it, her lips find yours.

Kissing you can handle. Kisses are safe. Familiar.

And Julia _is_ a good kisser. Her mouth parts yours, warm and inviting, and for a moment, the rest of the world can burn for all that you care.

You’ve let your guard down, more than what even you thought you would. You know because it barely even registers when Ortega first starts sliding up the hem of your shirt, steadily bunching the fabric up as the muscles around your hips and abdomen jump and twitch for more of her knowing touch.

She draws the fabric up and up, until her intent becomes impossible to ignore.

Like the beginnings of a full body charlie horse, you feel tense, knowing there’s no way around this. Your mind is too keen to be that easily fooled into believing a false darkness even as you try to fight it.

The muscles in your shoulders almost want to cramp and seize as you timidly raise your arms to allow Ortega to pull off your shirt. She gets it off with little problem, and the rest of your garments easily follow under her experienced touch, leaving you on the bed, blind, nude, and exposed in ways that you seriously begin to wonder if you should have allowed.

Your breathing is coming hard and heavy now, careening wildly on the edges between extreme arousal and logic-destroying panic.

“Hey, hey,” Ortega’s voice is a low and melodious croon. She settles her weight over you, and you can feel the press of her skin warm against yours as she cups your face with both hands. Since when did she even take her clothes off?

(And why didn’t you get to enjoy the show she normally puts on?)

That stray thought throws you--you would never admit to Julia just how much you _might_ enjoy her exhibitionist’s streak in putting on a strip show for you--enough that combined with her firm touch against your face, the worst of the edging panic subsides. Slowly, almost painfully, you feel your body begin to relax back into the mattress.

You feel Julia on top of you, a reassuring and naked weight, doing nothing but hold you as your breathing finally starts to slow down again.

“You okay, _querida_?”

Her voice is a whisper almost touching your lips, so patient you could almost hate her for it. Almost.

You nod, surprising even yourself, and Ortega kisses you softly and gently. She kisses you enough that by the time she pulls back, a noise of want escapes your throat.

You blush even while blindfolded--you can just imagine the shit-eating grin she’s wearing now.

Ortega manages to let that cockiness seep _entirely_ into her voice when she speaks, shushing your lips with a finger.

“Patience. You know I’ll treat you well soon.”

Then her finger withdraws, only to find purchase again on the inside of one forearm. Lightly at first, she trails over your skin, drawing goosebumps of sensation that run up your nerves and down your spine directly into your groin.

Arms, legs, abdomen...her touch glides over your skin in seemingly random patterns. You know better, though. Oh how well you know. She’s tracing not skin, but the lines of metallic orange. She’s taking her time to study _all_ of you...especially those parts you’ve always done your best to keep hidden. She finds the raised and hideous scars stubbornly covered by color--evidence of your failed attempts to cut and burn away the markings, and she pauses only to kiss the scar tissue there, no different than she does for even those scars she knows personally. So many from your time as a vigilante, and even more from the time after that.

It seems that she’s intent to leave no inch of you untouched, which leaves you shivering and sweating in turns, hypersensitized to the only sense your mind is primed to. Time bleeds in on itself, and it could be minutes or it could be days until Ortega’s fingers finally--finally, as you knew they would--reach the epicenter. On your sternum, just below your collarbone, where everything converges. The orange metallic lines across the rest of you are merely extensions of the stamp there. Even with the blindfold, even with your eyes squeezed shut beneath the fabric, the barcode and corresponding numbers are emblazoned in your brain, as if the Farm branded it into your mind as much as onto your body.

You’re not you. You aren’t real. You aren’t human. You’re a product. A fabrication. You were built to be a cuckoo. To look like a human, act like one. But you aren’t one, and every time you have to see your own skin and body, the unerasable lines of orange are the permanent reminder of it.

You don’t even realize how much you’ve seized up until Julia is shifting over you, and it’s not her fingertips tracing over the most hated part of you, it’s something softer and warmer.

The moment you realize she’s pressed her lips on you, just there, your body jerks back into a shaky and painful existence, like a flatlined patient given the jolt from the defibrillator. Julia’s tongue darts out from between her lips, wet and warm as she tastes the skin and the shape of the numbers and lines embossed there.

You suck in a breath, and it shreds through your vocal chords as something broken and fragile. Your muscles ball up and tense, and beneath the blindfold your darkened world spins and bleeds around you. You made a mistake. You shouldn’t have let yourself do this. You shouldn’t have made yourself this vulnerable, shouldn’t have given in. You need to stay covered, need to put on your layers, your protection. Need to keep from being seen.

You open your mouth to say so, to protest.

“Julia…” What comes out instead is small and gasping and desperate. It’s afraid, and in your own darkness you lean into her, pleading for something now more than you’ve ever needed it. And it scares you that you can’t even put a name to it, that the broken shards of you will surely cut Ortega into bloody pieces if you dare to name it.

Julia’s hand snakes into one of yours, fingers intertwining. You’re holding her back in what vaguely registers as a death grip, but if she notices, you can’t tell.

Her lips never leave your skin, never leave that part of you that you hate to think about, even as she speaks.

“You’re beautiful.” She intersperses her words with kisses. “So beautiful, _mi cari_ _ñ_ _o_ , every last inch of you.”

Her lips are so gentle that you could cry. You realize a moment later that you _are_ crying, tears thankfully anonymous and soaked up into the blindfold so that there’s no chance Ortega can see them. Still, almost as if she knows, she squeezes your hand tighter.

“Beautiful and real and so, so human, love.”

Anywhere else, any other time, you would have lashed out at that. How could she say that? It’s not true. It was never true. You’re a Re-Gene, and Re-Genes aren’t supposed to be human. They aren’t _made_ to be human.

Yet in the here and now, something halfway to a sob leaves you, and your knotted muscles suddenly give, tension rushing out of you like a boil being lanced. This time Julia moves. Her lips find yours easily, and her whispers of reassurance are uttered into your mouth instead.

Your arms wrap around her, fingers digging into her back as you draw her tightly to you--wanting, _needing_ something as you try to feel her against every naked and bared inch of skin.

And Ortega obliges. She kisses you until even the darkness spins, and she slides one hand down your ribs and between your legs, until sensation obliterates all semblance of thought and form.

Later, much later, you have to roll away from Julia and out of bed. You indulged her for as much as you could manage afterward, laying in bed, skin to skin, but you have your limits. With the lights on and your blindfold off, there’s only so much revulsion you can stand before it becomes impossible to ignore.

Thankfully, Julia says nothing as you start shrugging back on the loose pants and long-sleeved shirt. You’re confident you’re not visibly shaking while you cover yourself up again, but you can feel Julia’s eyes on you, and you wonder if behind the electrical storm of her thoughts she can see the relief you feel at covering up again.

It’s unnerving at times like this, being unable to read her thoughts. The first creepings of doubt that you had been holding back start at first as a trickle, and then as a flood.

She’s seen you now. Seen _all_ of you, truly and closely. Closer than you’ve ever willingly allowed anyone. Not just the lines webbed across your body, but the barcode, the numbers, the stamp that marks you as the artificial mimic you were designed to be.

_they scan your barcode before they start the procedure, pulling up the file that constitutes the whole of your meager life on the computer before they stick the needles into your skin, preparing to_

Now your hands start to shake, and your body flashes between burning hot and stabbing cold. Why did you do this? Why are you always so stupid and short-sighted when it comes to Ortega?

“Hey.”

Impossible to miss the sharp urgency in Julia’s voice, the mounting concern as you have to suck in a breath and try to ground yourself again. You have to push away the memories, the Farm. This isn’t the Farm. You’re not there anymore. You got out.

“ _Cari_ _ñ_ _o_ _mío_ , speak to me.”

You draw into yourself a fraction harder. You can hear the doubt in Julia’s voice now, even if she tries to hide. Is she regretting it? Does she think she made a mistake? 

You force your lips to move, though what comes out isn’t what you had meant to say. You’d meant to demur, to force the conversation away into something light. Something safe.

“I still…” You stutter. It’s hard enough to even think about these things, let alone say them. “I still hate...this body. I hate these marks.” 

_I hate me_.

You don’t have to say it for her to hear it, as though she is the telepath for once instead of you. You can see in the way her eyes widen for a second, in the way she stares at you from against the headboard of the bed, worry and caring and all blended with something else so potent it almost makes you want to scream at her to _stop caring stop trying just stop_.

Instead your fingers bite into your arms, into the orange that you know is there even if it’s covered. You see Julia still staring at you, and you can’t help but put some bite into your words. Anything to get that look off her face. You can’t bear it. You can’t bear to be here in your own skin and body, still feeling naked underneath her gaze even with the layers of clothes on. She doesn’t understand. She could never understand, so why does she keep trying?

“I’m never going to like them, okay? I’m never going to like all of me!” It comes out almost a yell, like an accusation.

To your surprise, Julia’s face softens instead. The worry eases away into something so tender it almost scares you even more to face her.

“You don’t have to.” 

She reaches out with one hand and snags your wrist, urging you back into bed by her. You could resist. You could even more easily slip her grip entirely. You don’t want to, though. A part of you so dearly wants to just give in, to fall into the illusion that she can protect and shelter you. You’re too weak and tired to fight it.

Julia pulls you back onto the mattress and by her side, still so comfortably naked in her own skin--natural and modded--even while you’ve fully clothed yourself. Her other hand slides up the hem of your shirt to rest on the small of your back, skin against skin. You go still immediately, her touch against your skin only reminds you of the lines of orange you’re trying not to think about, that you can’t stand to be reminded of. She makes no moves to peel off the clothing you’ve only just shrugged back on, though.

“You don’t have to like all of you.” Julia repeats herself. “But I’m still going to love all of you, even the parts that you hate.”

What the hell are you even supposed to say to something so, so...

“You’re an idiot.” You sigh it out, resigned more than anything else, and she’s hardly bothered by it.

“But I’m _your_ idiot,” she grins, rubbing her nose up against yours until you're sputtering and squirming.

Finally you kiss her to make her stop it.

If there’s one thing you’ve learned being with Ortega, it’s that kisses are a good way of distracting her. And winning arguments. And generally diverting her attention.

She does go quiet after you kiss, turning on her side to spoon you. Julia Ortega is so wonderfully warm, and you can practically nod off against her.

“Hey, _querida_?”

“Hm?” Fuck, you actually were dosing off, and you struggle to turn your head enough to get a glimpse of her face.

Her voice is equal parts soft and serious.

“Thank you.”

Maybe, just maybe, you might be able to get used to this.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so out of loop with posting fanfic. Go play Fallen Hero. It's great. Can't wait for Retribution to come out (go play the demo). Gonna destroy me by wrecking my feelings.


End file.
